Strikezone

It would have been easy for Wednesday's results, and/or non-results as they were, to cause tempers to flare and nerves to be on edge at Deland Field. Instead, cooler heads — albeit wetter and perhaps more enriched heads — prevailed.

In today's highly competitive and selfish society in which far too often winning takes priority over common sense and losing breeds poor sportsmanship or exposes lack of character, the Watertown and Wolcott high baseball teams rationally handled themselves with class and intelligence Monday.

The game between the 12-4 Eagles and the 10-6 Indians had the makings of a quality, competitive matchup that could provide either with momentum for the regular season stretch run and the postseason.

It was an important game that deserved to be taken very seriously.

Yet with Watertown's warmups finished and the game ready to start, the Indians found themselves missing four starters.

"Our leadoff hitter, our No. 3 and our No. 4 hitters — our first baseman D.J. Oullette, our right fielder Carmine Farese and second baseman Nick Pagliarulo — had an (Advanced Placement Physics) exam, and it went way beyond the time it was supposed to," Valentino said. "I get a call saying they are not going to get here until 4 p.m. Then when we get down here, our shortstop (Dan Brodeur) gets hit in the mouth and his two front teeth get knocked out."

Valentino didn't stall the start of the game. He didn't sulk and pout. And when players texted their parents asking if they could just leave the exam early since it had no bearing on grades, Valentino told them they had to finish.

The Indians filled the holes by playing Luke Andrews at shortstop, Tommy O'Brien at first base, Matt Pesino in right field and Brandon Picard at second base.

"What are you going to do?" Valentino said. "Someone else gets an opportunity. I knew they would get here eventually. Actually, I felt bad for the kids I put out there for an inning and then took out, because they were excited to get out there. But I think everyone understood."

Actually, Valentino didn't take the last-minute starters out after just one inning. They did in fact play 2-3 innings before the normal starters arrived, stretched and were ready to play.

The replacements didn't get a hit — O'Brien fared the best by drawing a walk — but they also didn't hurt the Indians.

Facing one of the top couple pitchers in the NVL in Wolcott's Manny Cruz, Watertown trailed only 1-0 when the game was called off due to rain in the top of the fifth inning, to be played in its entirety another day.

Therein was born the opportunity for Wolcott to show its class.

The Eagles were winning and had runners at first and second in the top of the fifth when home plate umpire John Bellino pulled the teams off the field for the second time because a steady rain was making playing conditions dangerous.

When the rain slowed considerably, Bellino checked the field and decided that without a work crew or equipment available to work on the field, he deemed it too dangerous to continue. He also wanted the game to played a full seven innings and didn't want to take the chance that they started back up only to be delayed again after five innings causing the contest to be shortened.

Wolcott coach Tary Scott could have ranted and raved. The players could have complained, heckled Bellino or otherwise acted immaturely. Instead, they kept everything in perspective.

Sure, they had an advantage unfairly taken from them. They used their best pitcher and didn't get a win out of it. But rather than sulk, they sat quietly in their dugout for more than half an hour thinking about what could have been as they waited for their team bus to find its way back to Deland.

"I understand the safety reason," Scott said. "Like every other place they should have had a rake and a broom to sweep it off and wait 45 minutes. You have to play, because we will have two more games this week and the NVL Tournament is starting. Everybody doesn't have pitching. So we should have gotten this game in. But I will deal with it, because this is part of high school baseball. Safety comes first."

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